Stately home haul brings in £750k at city auction

A TREASURE trove of antiques, including rare Jacobean artefacts, from a stately home has fetched more than £750,000 at a city auction.

The contents of Stobhall Castle, Perthshire, an ancestral seat of the Drummond family, were sold by Bonhams auction house.

Collectors bid from all over the world for more than 400 items dating as far back as the early 16th century.

The oldest item in the sale, a 500-year-old Venetian enamel and parcel gilt copper decorative dish, was sold to an overseas collector for an “astonishing” £121,250 – after a pre-sale estimate of £20,000 to £30,000.

A silver mounted presentation curling broom fetched £18,750, while a 1725 medal case belonging to the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, was bought for £10,000.

A punch bowl featuring a portrait of his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie, made in China around the time of Culloden, fetched £8750, and will go to America.

Bonhams managing director in Scotland, Miranda Grant, said: “This was a wonderful opportunity for collectors to acquire a slice of history from one of Scotland’s most fascinating ancestral homes and I am delighted it has been such a success.”